Mutiny Below
by RinnySega
Summary: As time goes on, what we once thought were concrete ideals seem to unravel within our fingers. Vendetta x Charlotte
1. Chapter 1

Charlotte was only seven when she saw something she shouldn't have.

Her parents were gone, leaving her in the care of her grandmother, Charlene. As she bounced into the kitchen that morning for breakfast, she took a glimpse at the newspaper on the table.

They were obituaries. Her mother and father were printed in black and white beside a column explaining their tragic death only a few days prior. Charlotte stared at it, heart unnerving when her grandmother spoke from the stove.

"Your parents called me this morning!" she called. "They made it to their space station where they'll be for a while! I'm sure when they come back they'll bring you back plenty of moon rocks to play with!"

Charlotte continued to stare at the article before smiling and turning the page to the classifieds. "Yes! I'm very excited for their return!"

….

"Hey! Stupid girl! Be gone from my property!" Vendetta shouted from her bedroom window. The green sixteen-year old was scowling at the fourteen-year old on her front lawn. Charlotte stared up at her window with a wide smile.

"Good morning Vendetta!" she bounced, her new full chest bouncing along with the rest of her. "My grandmother made so many cookies last night, we cannot possibly eat them all! I brought some over for my best friend in the whole world!"

Vendetta scoffed. "Off my property!" And with that, she slammed her windows shut.

Charlotte's smile faded and she sighed, setting the basket down on the doormat anyway. She turned to leave, her hands in the pockets of her flowing blue sundress.

Inside the house, Vendetta yawned, brushing her greasy green hair with her bone-like fingers before tying them up in their pigtails. She slipped on a thin green turtleneck over her long nightgown, without any more enthusiasm to be dressed for the day.

Charlotte sat in the park but kept Vendetta's house in view. The wind blew, softly brushing her blue curls against the skin of her neck. As the years went on, she was slowly falling into something much darker than she set out to be when her parents died. Children were so easy to manipulate and so much easier to appease, and she felt her mentality as a child was like the same. At the time, it seemed so easy to be optimistic, no matter how much darkness and evil seemed to build around her. She was aware of Vendetta's hatred toward her, as well as those from the other students still in her class. Vendetta struck her interest as a girl who was dark, much like herself, and admired her for the ability to show it without hiding it beneath layers of fake smiles and empty naivety.

With her sandal, she drew circles in the sand, unaware the circles turned into figure 8s that ended up an eighth inch deep until she saw Vendetta emerge from her home. She stood from the bench quickly and climbed up one of the dead trees standing by the path. She leaned against the trunk in hopes of being hidden, but when puberty struck, it gave her quite the hourglass figure that was harder to conceal than her old body.

Vendetta stuck her hands deeper into the pockets of her sweater, shivering from the cool breeze blowing in. She considered going back for a thicker sweater, but was too stubborn to turn back for one. She stopped underneath the tree that hid Charlotte and stared down at the figure 8 in the sand. She scoffed and continued on her way. Charlotte watched her leave, her hands pressed down on her dress so it wouldn't blow out in the wind. When she disappeared around the bend, the blue girl hopped down and smiled, following her with briskness.

Water from the pond rippled in chaotic waves as Vendetta aggressively threw stone after stone into its depths. Once more, Charlotte was up in a tree, spying on her as she did this weekly ritual. Five years ago, Charlotte began to notice Vendetta was never home on Saturday mornings, and was disappointed when she couldn't watch cartoons with her "friend." But she came to find every Saturday morning she came down to this pond to throw stones—sometimes for only thirty minutes but sometimes for several hours. It all depended on the weather and Vendetta's mood that day she guessed. But like clockwork, no matter what, she came to this spot every week. This tiny pond away from Clamburg, away from the world. And like clockwork, Charlotte was always watching her from the tree, more engrossed by the day in what thoughts could be swirling in her sadistic head.


	2. Chapter 2

When she was seven years old, Charlotte did something she shouldn't have.

It wasn't entirely her fault; at least, that's what she's told herself over the years. It was her parents' anniversary and she wanted to bake them something special. She didn't know the difference between the rat poison and sugar, and really whose bright idea was it to make them look similar anyway?

….

Fall was dying slowly, and winter was coming. There wasn't much change in the weather pattern in Clamburg, since it never snowed. The only real way Charlotte could ever tell the season changed was when she went to the drug store the town over and looked at the seasonal items aisle. This is where she was today.

"I think he likes you," the worker smiled, holding up a plush of Frosty the Snowman to her. His name was Mark, and it wasn't a secret he had a thing for the blue girl who came to the store once in a while. She was flipping through Christmas cards, looking over at his boyish smile while he held the doll.

"He's not the first." She smiled back and continued her shopping. "But you know what I like?"

"What's that?" As if he didn't already know.

She held up a piece of paper she took from her pocket to let him read it. "Ah," he nodded. "Bottle of Jager."

"Did you bring it for me?"

"It's in my truck. I'll pass it over when you check out."

"I'm ready." She passed over two Christmas cards. He took them and walked with her to the register, letting his light purple fingers type in the barcode.

"Would you like Frosty too? Half price for you, Lotte."

"Why not?" she smiled while he entered that in as well and packed them into the plastic bag. She paid for her items and slipped him a flower she drew for him in thanks. He seemed to appreciate that more than anything.

Outside they made their exchange and Charlotte drove her grandmother's car back to Clamburg with the cards, doll, and alcohol seat belted in the passenger seat.

….

Vendetta was tired. She wiped the sweat from her forehead while she slaved over a hot stove all morning. With all her years of experience in creating fiends, she was hoping to use her skills and make something even more horrendous than her past creations. But all her attempts that morning were failures.

She took a break and lied on her couch, groaning as loud as she could. Grudge came through the door with a tray of magazines and grape punch.

"Stupid hamster," she growled. "Snacks."

Without making a sound, he set the tray down and went back into the kitchen to fetch a plate of beef jerky. She stuck her straw into the box of punch and had just opened to the first page when the doorbell rang. She sighed.

"Door!"

A fiend scurried from within her umbrella bin and wrapped itself around the knob, turning slightly to open it. No one stood outside, but there was a little something on the "Go away" mat: a tiny stuffed doll of Frosty the Snowman.

She stood from the couch and walked over, looking down at the white snowman as he smiled up at her with a mouth made of buttons. She sneered, punting it as hard as she could and watched it sail in an arch until it landed outside her fence. A tiny smirk of satisfaction crossed her lip as she began to shut the door, but she stopped when she saw an envelope sitting where the doll had been.

Her name was written in blue sharpie with as fancy calligraphy as she'd ever seen. Groaning, she knew it had to be from Charlotte. She picked it up with her toes, reaching down to grab it, and opened it to read the card inside.

The front of the card was a kitten wearing a Santa hat lying on a candy cane tied with ribbon. She scoffed and opened it.

"To Vendetta," she read with a bored tone. "Have a Merry Christmas, blah blah blah, signed stupid girl." She ripped it into four pieces and tossed it to the wind, slamming the door when she was done.

Charlotte sat on Vendetta's roof and watched the whole thing. When the door slammed shut, she smiled again and lied against the chimney in hopes of hearing her voice again, drifting up from within her home.


	3. Chapter 3

When Charlotte was thirteen years old, she met someone she shouldn't have.

Her first trip by herself to see a movie a few towns over was one she'd remember as a day that changed her life. He seemed like a nice enough person when they met in the darkness of the theatre, and she didn't know the dangers of the substances he kept in his pockets. The amber liquid from the dark bottle didn't seem that intimidating, so she went for it and tried them in copious amounts to impress him. As she threw up by herself in her bathroom later that night, she couldn't help but think that this was the punishment she deserved.

She had yet to find the razors.

...

Another swig sent her into a confusing, blurred vision of what was her bedroom. Her blue eyes groaned along with her voice as she tried desperately not to pass out from the abundant amount of liquid she was drinking. Her brain felt like mush, her beads of sweat felt clammy, and her blue complexion was turning a faint shade of green. When she looked to her mirror at the side of her, it made her think of Vendetta.

In the house a few hills over, the phone rang.

Vendetta was soaking herself in a warm bath when it went off, and she had neither time nor the effort to answer it. Instead, she sent off a fiend to take a message for whoever dared to disturb her. Whoever it was, that person better have a good excuse for calling so late at night.

The tiny notepad with eyes and mouth came inside the bathroom with writing all over its face. Vendetta reached down and picked it up, reading the words along the page.

"Oh…I thought she was there," she read out loud. She glared at the fiend. "Did you ask what business they wanted or did you just write down whatever they said?" Her teeth gritted. The little fiend shook before flipping its face up to reveal another set of eyes and mouth on another page. Here too there were words. Vendetta read on. "Let Vendetta know I am thinking about her, and tell her I want to see her when she gets home. I am scared." Vendetta smirked. "Ha! Good." She tossed the creature to the tiles of the bathroom and watched it scamper its way out into the hallway. Vendetta sank back into the water, up to her chin, and let the warmth soak into her skin. "Good, she needs to be afraid of something…hmm…" she looked up at her ceiling. "But what could it be?"

….

The next day, Vendetta went back to her favorite spot by the pond and did her usual habit of throwing stones into the water. But Charlotte was not watching her from the tree that day. Instead, she was below the surface, holding onto a rock for support as she watched the rocks fall down into the depths. She'd been there for two hours already, but thankfully her skills of holding her breath for nine hours were still within her.

Three hours passed before Vendetta decided it was enough and she sat on the bank with her forehead to her knees. Charlotte let go of the rock and floated to the surface where she saw her hunched over herself, still wearing a green gown under a dirty green sweater. She smiled.

"Hi Vendetta."

The girl's head turned up sharply at the mention of her name and rubbed her eyes when she saw Charlotte drifting in the water.

"You...what are you doing in there!" she demanded.

"I'm swimming!" She floated on her back, kicking her legs to splash water up at her companion. She still wore her dirty PJs from the night before, and in the wetness of the water, they were already starting to become see through. And the reason she was here was not swimming at all. Earlier that day, at 4am to be precise, she found herself dazed and confused by the pond, and walked inside it with the hopes of drowning. Her subconscious will to live, as well as her remarkable breath holding talent, probably saved her life. But she couldn't tell that to Vendetta.

"I do not care if you are swimming! This is my spot, mine! Now get out of the water you stupid blue girl!"

Charlotte giggled, trying to hide every trace of any depression or despair she felt. "But it's fun!" she squealed, diving back into the water. She swam down to the bottom and picked up one of Vendetta's stones to return to her at the surface. But when she came back up, Vendetta was gone.

….

That night, Charlotte found the razors.


	4. Chapter 4

When Vendetta was five years old, she met someone she should have.

But with age came a faded memory. That is until she found Charlotte with the razors.

….

"I hate that girl!" she shouted, her voice thick with Russian influence. "I hate her I hate her I hate her!"

Grudge simply stood and watched her throw her tantrum. Once she was so tiny he could carry her in the folds of his paws. Now she stood a good six inches above him. In a way, it made him feel inferior, almost insignificant.

Some of her mossy green hair stuck up from her scalp as if static electricity was orbiting around her head. Her stress was creating bags under her eyes, and her thin, weakly frame was already shaking with the burden of her weight. After she flipped over another table, she panted loud and collapsed to her knees, her face cupped in her twig like hands.

….

"I have too many people telling me I smell of lavender and sugar mixed with honey. They must not smell well. I reek of alcohol too often to count, don't you think?" Charlotte spoke to Buttons 2. Buttons had long died ago, and where his cage once sat was Buttons 2 in his newly furnished box. He watched her as she slipped off her PJs she hadn't taken off all day. When she emerged from the pond, she walked around to dry, her mind swirling with Vendetta. She got as far as the outskirts of the town when something shimmering in the bushes caught her eye. It was a razor. Her smile's brightness matched the metal.

She was stripped down completely with the thin strip of sharp metal in her palm. She stared at it, weighing it from one palm to the other while making a slow walk to the bathroom.

…..

It had been a while since Vendetta's collapse onto the living room floor, and Grudge was nervous about approaching her. She was curled into a ball, shivering once in a while from either the cold or something dark within herself. She lied beside a table which held a framed picture of her now late parents.

Unwillingly to take anymore, he approached her and gently nudged her into a sitting position. The bags under her eyes were dark and heavy as her eyes fixed onto her stained shag carpet. He gave a small grunt, nudging her shoulder lightly.

Her eyes snapped onto him, her teeth gritted, almost looking fang-like. "Don't TOUCH ME!" she slapped his paw away and him hard. He skidded a few feet away, staring up at her as she towered over him. She continued to kick at him, screaming and yelling while her shadow lay over the image of her family in the frame.

...

Purple. The clear, blue water bout her began to turn purple as the redness flowed from her wrist. She sank lower, her head craned back. And yet, the only thing going through Charlotte's mind was how bright the bathroom light was in her eyes.

….

Storming over to her home was Vendetta, finally dressed in more than a sweater over a nightgown. She kicked open the front door, glaring around the home with a lead pipe in her hand. Charlene's car was absent from the driveway, but that wasn't a sure-fire sign that Charlotte wasn't still about in the house. She made a beeline for the bedroom where she saw buttons 2 asleep in his crate. On the floor was a pile of Charlottes clothing, spilling out into the direction of the bathroom. That's when she heard the running water.

Gripping the lead pipe in her hand, she kicked open the bathroom door, raising it high above her head.

She stopped.

Jaded blue eyes stared up at her in a pool of blue, red, and purpleish liquid. Tiny slits of metal with red about its edges had fallen onto the white tile. A blue hand reached up, a thick red gash upon her wrist.

Then black.

….

When Vendetta was still a child, she was given a chemistry set from her parents as a birthday present. As she put in mixtures of whatever she could find, a kindly young woman with a magenta shade to her body kneeled beside her. The sounds of the park were now coming back to Vendetta.

"You look like you will be quite the mastermind one day," she said to her. "Just remember that your work should always help those in need. If not, there is no point to human life."

…

And Vendetta began to scream, the white tile cracking when the pipe slipped from her hands.


	5. Chapter 5

When Charlotte was fourteen, she woke up to someone she loved.

….

Her eyes, still weak and dizzy, rolled back and forth in her head while her eyelids tried with difficulty to open. The brightness of the bathroom was replaced with a grimmer tone, and the blue scheme turned into a dark and mossy green.

"Are you alive?" a voice said beside her.

Charlotte tilted her head to the side and opened her eyes a little wider to Vendetta leaning over her. The split ends of her pigtails brushed against her nose, making her sneeze.

"I'm alive," she sniffed. "…I didn't mean to."

"Didn't mean to what? Kill yourself?"

That's when everything came back to her. The razor, the bathtub, everything. She felt tiny strings in heart start tugging, making her want to cry. "No. I mean...I don't know." She rolled over, away from Vendetta, looking at her wrists that were each layered in bandages. A few red splotches stared back at her.

Vendetta watched her, mulling a few things over in her head. When she went to Charlotte's house to beat her with the pipe, really the last thing she'd expect was her dying in the tub from self-inflicted wounds. This could be an oppurtunity to dig into her subconcious. On the outside she was an optimistic bubble of joy, but something deeper must be going on with her to make her want to do something like that. She wanted to know.

"I'm thirsty…" Charlotte whimpered.

"Done." Vendetta snapped her fingers, and a fiend came in carrying a tray of grape punch. She stuck the straw in for her and set it down beside her face. Charlotte took a few sips and sighed, rubbing her face in the pillow.

….

Charlene didn't understand the severity of the situation when Vendetta called to tell her Charlotte would be staying with her for the next few weeks. She just shrugged it off as two friends wanting to spend some time together. So, she continued on with her daily toils, without asking Charlotte what was going on.

She was sitting up in bed now, after two days of lying about and gaining energy. One of Vendetta's fiends came into the room with her lunch, but she refused to take it.

"I want to have a picnic instead," Charlotte said to Vendetta.

Charlotte stood in the archway of the kitchen where Vendetta was at work creating more fiends. She removed her goggles and stared at her in confusion. "You want to go outside? What, right now?" Charlotte nodded, a cute smile on her face. Vendetta sighed, removing her gloves and coat and stepped with her out of the kitchen.

"Grudge, make a picnic lunch for the both of us, and give more breads, fruits and vegetables to Charlotte's portions of the basket. And hurry up you stupid hamster!"

….

Charlotte walked a little behind Vendetta while the two of them searched for a spot to have their lunch. Her hands, still too weak to hold much, were cupped by her waist while Vendetta sat the basket down under a tree. "There, how is this?'

"Ooh, I like trees," she smiled. "This is perfect."

Vendetta rolled her eyes and laid out the blanket, setting the food out from the basket. Charlotte sat down beside her and picked up her sandwich, shaking slightly. "It looks so yummy!" she smiled, a trace of pain in her expression, and nibbled at her sandwich. Vendetta watched her.

"So tell me," she ate some of her steamed clams. "What is going on with you?"

"Well, right now I'm having a great picnic with my best friend ev-AH!" she dropped the sandwich on the blanket and limply held her wrist. She turned it the wrong way, sending waves of pain down her nerves. Vendetta still watched her, but didn't get that satisfaction she hoped for whenever Charlotte was in pain.

The blue girl groaned, her expression falling as her back started slumping. She sighed. "I'm not doing very well."

"Obviously." she ate more of her clams. "What happened to make you this way?"

"If I told you, could you keep it a secret?"

"Who else would I tell?"

"Please, you have to promise!" she was dead serious.

"Okay, okay...I promise I won't tell."

Charlotte stared down at her bandages. "I killed my parents."

Vendetta practically choked on her punch.


	6. Chapter 6

When Vendetta was sixteen years old, she cried for the first time in her life.

….

"It was an accident." Charlotte rubbed the skin of her arm with the back of her hand.

Vendetta stared at her. "But I thought your stupid parents were in space."

"Metaphorically."

Vendetta scratched the tufts of hair behind her ear. "So…" she trailed off. "How did it happen?"

"Poison. I thought it was sugar."

Vendetta felt strings tugging in her chest. "Did you know when you moved here when you were eight?"

Charlotte nodded, smiling softly at the ants marching along the remains of her sandwich. "Yeah. I've known..."

The tension between them could easily be cut with the wind picking up around them. Vendetta's pigtails blew in the breeze while Charlotte's hair barely moved. She scooted closer to her, sitting next to her while she stared at the bandages around her wrists. Charlotte looked up at her when she moved in.

"What's wrong?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Because you look like you're crying."

Vendetta put a finger to her eye, feeling the small drop soak into her skin. She sniffed, reaching into her pocket for a key. "Yes. So I am."

….

With her back to the door, Vendetta pushed her weight against it to shut it closed. In a tired slump, she kicked her shoes off into her room and shuffled her way to the bed. She removed her sweater, tossing it onto a heap of dirty clothing and crawled into the warmth of her sheets. Her head lay softly on the pillow while a thick, heavy feeling dwelled in her chest.

Grudge stood beside her after a while, looking down on her to make sure she was all right. Without looking at him, or even opening her eyes, she let out a sigh.

"I didn't mean to kill my parents either," she spoke softly. "How is it that she can go through what I have gone through and still be able to smile and act as if everything is okay?"

Grudge only continued to listen.

"She tells me she admires me for being able to deal with my emotions the way I should. By anger and resentment for everyone around me...she has come to find those attractive qualities. I did not know how to deal with it. I panicked! I give her my house key and tell her to come here if she needs me. Can you believe this? My most hated enemy…Do I make sense to you?" She looked at him. He nodded. She rested her head back down. "I do not know what I am to do..."

….

Charlotte stood in the archway of the living room with a bag of clothes across her shoulders. The blue sweater she wore over her dress hid the bandages from her grandmother.

"Are you sure you don't need me to drive you to Vendetta's? It's getting dark."

"I'll be okay," she said walking over. "Beside, I need the walk to think about some things." She kissed her grandmother on the forehead.

"Well, if you need anything you let me know." She went back to cleaning her dishes. "A young man from the drug store a few towns over called. He asked how you were doing."

"If he calls again, you can tell him I'm fine."

"Sounds like he has a little thing for you."

Charlotte swished her lips and smiled. "Grandma, can I ask you something."

"Anything, my dear."

Charlotte stood beside her, leaning over the counter. "What's the most romantic thing you can do to someone you like?"

Charlene chuckled. "Oh, I know the perfect answer to that."

….

Vendetta was slowly drifting away when the creak of her bedroom door sounded. Before she could have time to turn her head or open her eyes, she felt the weight of another person push down on the mattress. She felt the warm figure of a girl slip its way beside her under the blankets, and shivered slightly when she felt her breath on the back of her neck.

She didn't have to look to see who it was. She was about to open her mouth to speak when two lips lightly touched the edge of her ears.

She whispered.

Her face flushed from mossy green to bright red, and she curled into a tight ball. Charlotte's arms lightly wrapped themselves around her and pulled her in closer for the night.

….

Charlotte stood beside her, leaning over the counter. "What's the most romantic thing you can do to someone you like?"

Charlene chuckled. "Oh, I know the perfect answer to that."

Charlotte leaned in closer. "Tell me."

"If you like someone, the best think you can do is to lean in close and whisper their name into their ear."


End file.
